


Since You've Been Gone

by astudyinfic



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: M/M, Modern, Reincarnation, reunited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-24
Updated: 2014-04-24
Packaged: 2018-01-20 14:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1514480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinfic/pseuds/astudyinfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin finds ways to pass the time since Arthur's death.  Some things work better than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Since You've Been Gone

When you have lived for over a thousand years, you start getting creative with the ways that you spend your time.  At first, Merlin just wondered, lost in a haze of grief and pain that he never thought he would get out of.  It had taken a hundred years but eventually the warlock began to live again.  Merlin finally came to the realization that Arthur wasn’t coming back anytime soon and instead of moping about it, he could do something, anything to occupy his time.

He spent a few hundred years with the druids.  Even after their people were being scattered amongst the ever growing population, assimilating into modern society, several clung to the old ways and taught everything they could to Emrys.  Even after the stories of Merlin and Arthur were denigrated to simple myths and legends, the druids believed in the destiny of the two.  “Your king will return,” they would tell him, nearly every day.  “Have faith.  Have patience.  You will be rewarded.”  Merlin accepted their words with a smile but knew that what was being asked of him was a Herculean task.  Not even the great Merlin Emrys had unending patience and Arthur seemed to be taking his time coming back.

Once the druids ran out of things to teach him, when the younger generations were more interested in playing with their friends than hearing the tales of the king and sorcerer once more, Merlin decided it was time to move on.  There was no doubt that Arthur would return to Albion.  He was the once and future king of the land, after all and it would be unthinkable for him to be anywhere else.  But somehow Merlin knew there was still plenty of time to wait.

Merlin didn’t know what Arthur would be like when he came back.  Would he rise from the lake, looking exactly as he had the day Merlin had said goodbye to his best friend and only man he would ever love?  Or would he be born as an infant, unaware of his destiny?  Perhaps something in between, born as a babe but growing up with the knowledge and skills that the king himself had once possessed?  These questions haunted Merlin in the late hours when he would lay quietly, wishing for nothing more than Arthur’s breath soft and steady beside him.

The chance was good that Arthur wouldn’t be able to defend himself, not right away at least, so Merlin next devoted himself to the study of the sword.  He learned how to make them and how to use them, growing stronger with his training and more confident in his ability should he need to train the future king when he returned to Albion once more.  Or kill him again for taking such a bloody long time to come back, making Merlin wait centuries too long.

As swords fell out of fashion with the dawn of guns, Merlin gave up on his quest to become the greatest swordsman of all age, leaving that title to live with Arthur for all time.  Guns held no interest for him so the warlock once again moved on, searching for something new to occupy his time.  The newest obsession was the flute.  Music was booming around Europe and Merlin wanted to be a part of it.  

As he progressed, getting better and better, able to play tunes for any town he was visiting, the sorcerer felt his own spirits lift with every note he breathed life into.  Music gave him hope and peace that he had not possessed for hundreds of years.  And if he occasionally enchanted the vermin in a town to follow him while he played them away and down to the river to drown, well, it was for a good cause, right?

His love of the flute lasted up until the Second World War.  With a world on the brink of collapse, Merlin knew without a doubt, that Arthur was coming back.  He packed away his flute and his swords and began to make his way towards the battlefields, helping those that he could along the way, always searching the eyes of the soldiers for the man he would never forget.  

Eventually he joined the forces as a medic and worked to save many men’s lives, though not a one of them was his beloved king.  As the war ended and the survivors went home, Merlin stayed behind, wandering Europe, once again in a daze.  His king had not come.  Even in the time of greatest need, the world had not seen Arthur Pendragon.  He wasn’t coming back.  Merlin was destined to live his life alone, with only the memory of the ten short years they spent together to keep him sane.  

Over fifty years seemed to flash by, Merlin’s pain so deep and so intense that nothing else mattered and time seemed to be the illusion.  Once again the warlock found himself in Britain, London particularly.  He carried nothing with him, knowing that he could conjure anything that might be needed.  His red neckerchief, possibly the millionth he had owned over his long life was still tied around his neck as it always had been but now he wore a heavy wool coat, jeans and boots.  A stocking cap held his hair down and kept him warm against the autumn chill.

Even while in the bustling metropolis that London had become, Merlin sought out nature wherever he could, eventually finding himself in a park in the center of the city.  Taking a deep breath, attempting to relax and draw strength from the life all around him, Merlin’s calm was disturbed by a football flying at his head.  He moved just in time for it to land behind him and he turned to look in the direction it came.

“Hey!  Mate!  Send it back here!” a toe headed man called from the grass.  When Merlin continued to stand staring at him, the man turned, “Do you hear me?”  Merlin’s eyes narrowed and he looked at him with utter hatred as his blood boiled.  “Thank god.  I thought you were deaf as well as dumb.”

Who did this child think he was talking to?  Turning, Merlin picked up the ball and may have thrown it back with a bit more force than would have been completely natural, bouncing it soundly off the prat’s head.

The blond man stepped forward, getting closer than was socially acceptable.  “I could take you apart with one blow,” he growled, blue eyes piercing into Merlin’s.

Merlin felt his breath catch as the words finally clicked his mind and he knew.  “I could take you apart with less than that.”

The realization bloomed in the man’s eyes and he took a step back, eyes darting around before falling on Merlin once more.  “Merlin?”

“Hello, Arthur,” he smiled, reaching out to shake Arthur’s hand, gripping his forearm near the elbow.  

Arthur returned the gesture, pulling Merlin into a tight hug, much to the confusion of his friends who looked on.  “Arthur, are we going to keep playing?” one asked, leaving unasked the question they truly wanted the answer to, why their friend went from threatening a man to hugging him in the span of two sentences.

Eyes never leaving his former servant’s, Arthur shook his head.  “Nah, keep going without me.  This is an old friend and we have a lot to catch up on.”  His entire world at just been turned upside down.  Until a few moments ago, he had been Arthur Penn, son of Luther and Yvonne, who had unfortunately died in childbirth.  He was well off but unfocused, moving from uni to uni, job to job, spending more time goofing off with his friends than doing anything with his life.

Now, he was Arthur Pendragon, the once and future king, best friend and lover of Merlin Emrys, a man who now stood in front of him for the first time in over one thousand years.  If his friends thought there was any way he was letting Merlin out of his sight now, they were sorely mistaken.

Merlin, for his part was near bursting with excitement.  He felt his magic reaching out to Arthur, tentatively embracing him, seeking confirmation that this was the man he had waited so long for even though he already knew.  There was no way it wasn’t and Merlin was never going to let him go again.

Arthur’s friends watched, baffled as he walked away with the scrawny man they had never once seen before.  The two men walked closer than was normally acceptable between friends and one of the men left on the pitch raised a brow when he saw Arthur tentatively tangle his fingers with Merlin’s.

“So, what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?” Arthur asked, smiling at the man who had been missing from his life for far too long.  Other than the modern clothes, Merlin looked exactly as Arthur remembered him from the first time they met.  He thought with some surprise that he too, was the same age he had been when they first ran into each other all those centuries ago.

“Oh, you know, a little of this, a little of that,” Merlin remarked, squeezing Arthur’s hand.  “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

Smiling at each other, eyes locked on the man at his side, Arthur and Merlin walked off to an uncertain future but one that they would face together.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure if I am going to continue this or leave it as a one shot. Thoughts and comments as to if you would like more would be wonderful.


End file.
